This invention relates to a food additive and more particularly to a food additive comprising a particle which is added to a food to create an egg or cottage cheese-containing food.
It is desirable to add proteinaceous particles such as egg or cottage cheese pieces to a moist food. One advantage to adding egg or cottage cheese pieces to a moist pet food is the added nutrition provided thereby. A further advantage includes improved palatability. While the palatability and nutrition remain in the moist food whether or not the egg and cottage cheese piece are visible in the food, the absence or the invisibility of either the egg or cottage cheese piece renders the canned food less acceptable to the consumer, or pet owner. If the pet owner cannot actually see the desired piece in the moist pet food, he is less likely to accept the content of the pet food as containing the additional nutritional and palatability values of the egg and cottage cheese pieces. From the pet owner's standpoint, visible proof of the egg or cottage cheese piece is highly desirable as well as the actual presence thereof. In this fashion, the pet food becomes more aesthetically pleasing as well as nutritionally acceptable.
However, when the proteinaceous pieces such as egg or cottage cheese are added to a moist food and the resultant moist food is sterilized using normal retort conditions, problems result. The cottage cheese alone is not stable enough to withstand these conditions. In fact, the cottage cheese breaks down and loses its characteristic white curd-like appearance. Egg when heat treated and added to the product is stable. However, the amount of egg needed to be added to the moist pet food to obtain the desired visible appearance is prohibitive from an economic standpoint. By economic standpoint is meant the egg is neither readily enough available nor low enough in price to use in a product of this type. Thus, a method of extending the egg piece or diluting it to obtain the desired appearance is required. Also, cottage cheese is expensive and not readily available, and thus needs to be diluted and stabilized to give the desired visible appearance. The means of diluting the egg and the cottage cheese piece while stabilizing the egg or cottage cheese piece must also provide for a maintained palatability, nutrition, and visibility of the piece in the product.
By "moist food" is meant that the water content -- either as free water or combined with the components -- exceeds about 50% by weight of the total food composition. The water provides a growth medium for microorganisms in the moist food. Therefore, the moist food must be canned or otherwise packaged and then sterilized. It is these sterilization conditions, for example 276.degree. F. for 40 minutes, that potentially can destroy the appearance of egg and cottage cheese components in the moist food.
A particularly suitable use for moist food includes the pet food area. More particularly, a suitable use for a moist food containing cottage cheese and/or egg is as a pet dog food or as a puppy food. The additives of cottage cheese and egg provide extra protein, thereby assisting the growth and maintenance of the animal or puppy. The high quality of the protein provided by the cottage cheese and egg also assists the physiological development of the subject animal or puppy. Egg, in particular contains an excellent balance of amino acids essential to growth and maintenance. This extra high quality protein is especially essential to puppies. Thus it may be seen that there are a number of advantages for including proteinaceous pieces such as egg and/or cottage cheese in a pet food.
Additionally, as set forth above, the egg or cottage cheese components in the pet food must be distinct, realistic looking, and readily visible in the finished product. Cottage cheese by itself fails to retain its identity when retorted during a canning process.
To incorporate egg into the pet food product, it is possible to use egg white, whole egg, egg yolk or mixtures thereof. Any of these egg components are effective, but not economical ingredients as set forth above. Therefore, it is desirable to extend or dilute egg material and stabilize the resulting mixture to provide visual as well as nutritional acceptability. It is further desired to avoid cooking of the components prior to incorporation in the moist food since this is more laborious and expensive. Fresh frozen whole egg or reconstituted dry whole egg is somewhat stable during retorting provided they are first precooked, but it is economically unfeasible to add the necessary amount for visual appearance. Furthermore, the egg thus treated is not capable of producing uniform pieces of desired size for use in a process. Previous attempts at diluting the egg with starch or other ingredients to form a retort stable egg piece have met with little success.
Additionally, the treatment of the egg or cottage cheese components to form a stable composition must also permit forming particles of the composition for incorporation in the moist pet food. Particle form is essential, because uniform dispersion of the egg or cottage cheese component within the moist food is dependent thereon and desirable. Such forming of particles is highly complicated unless the composition retains the desired processability so the composition may be easily shaped into particles.
It thus becomes desirable to produce color stable, retortable, egg and cottage cheese components which are perceivable in the finished product.
A further problem with the art of food processing is to maintain a nutritional food having a required caloric content. This problem is solved by maintaining nutrition at a high level while adjusting the calorie content. In this manner, weight loss attributed to a dietetic food can occur while the nutritional value of the food is maintained. It is, therefore, desirable to provide a nutritional food having the proper calorie content in order to assist the weight loss. Such caloric modification using a cottage cheese component is especially helpful in feeding obese pets, since cottage cheese is very low in fat content. However, this modification in calorie content causes other problems with flavor and acceptability as well as nutrition.
Even assuming a composition suitable for use as a stabilized egg or cottage cheese piece can be made, a problem remains in making and reducing that composition to a usable particle size. Such further processing is a major problem. The processing is desirably carried out simply using standard equipment. If the composition is not usable in such simple fashion, the operability of the whole system is questionable.
Thus, it is seen that additives which provide nutrition and can be modified to provide a desired caloric content are highly suitable.